The present invention generally relates to digital data processing and more particularly to presenting controls of web pages to screen readers in a reliable way.
Screen readers are software programs that present graphics and text as speech. For a computer user who is blind or otherwise visually impaired, and therefore cannot read information from a visual display device, e.g., a computer monitor, a screen reader is used to provide information in a non-visual form to a user about what appears on the screen, which will generally include names and descriptions of control buttons, menus, text, and punctuation. In essence, a screen reader transforms a graphical user interface (GUI) into an audio or other non-visual interface. Screen readers can also be used in other circumstances, for example, in industrial workplaces by operators whose eyes are busy with tasks other than watching a computer display.
Many computer-implemented applications display information on a computer screen using a web browser based interface. Such applications can be sites of web pages served over the Internet or client-server based systems such as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Business processes within enterprises are often controlled using computer-implemented systems such as ERP systems. An example of an ERP system is the integrated business solution made by SAP AG of Walldorf (Baden) Germany. Within such a system a number of business processes can be controlled, for example, human resources, finance, controlling, purchases, sales, production, and planning. Implementations of business processes usually involve workflows, i.e., sequences of generally sequential steps for completing a specific business process. Typical implementations use a web-based client-server architecture, with client-side graphical user interfaces. Vision-impaired users rely on screen readers to interact with the graphical user interfaces.